The system of Hebrew numerals is a quasi-decimal

alphabetic numeral system An alphabetic numeral system is a type of numeral system. Developed in classical antiquity, it flourished during the early Middle Ages. In alphabetic numeral systems, numbers are written using the characters of an alphabet, syllabary, or anothe ...

using the letters of the

Hebrew alphabet The Hebrew alphabet ( he, אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is an abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewi ...

. The system was adapted from that of the

Greek numerals Greek numerals, also known as Ionic, Ionian, Milesian, or Alexandrian numerals, are a system of writing numbers using the letters of the Greek alphabet. In modern Greece, they are still used for ordinal numbers and in contexts similar to tho ...

in the late 2nd century BCE. The current numeral system is also known as the ''Hebrew alphabetic numerals'' to contrast with earlier systems of writing numerals used in classical antiquity. These systems were inherited from usage in the

Aramaic The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...

and Phoenician scripts, attested from c. 800 BCE in the so-called Samaria ostraca and sometimes known as ''Hebrew-Aramaic numerals'', ultimately derived from the Egyptian Hieratic numerals. The Greek system was adopted in

Hellenistic Judaism Hellenistic Judaism was a form of Judaism in classical antiquity that combined Jewish religious tradition with elements of Greek culture. Until the early Muslim conquests of the eastern Mediterranean, the main centers of Hellenistic Judaism wer ...

and had been in use in Greece since about the 5th century BCE. In this system, there is no notation for

zero 0 (zero) is a number representing an empty quantity. In place-value notation such as the Hindu–Arabic numeral system, 0 also serves as a placeholder numerical digit, which works by multiplying digits to the left of 0 by the radix, usual ...

, and the numeric values for individual letters are added together. Each unit (1, 2, ..., 9) is assigned a separate letter, each tens (10, 20, ..., 90) a separate letter, and the first four hundreds (100, 200, 300, 400) a separate letter. The later hundreds (500, 600, 700, 800 and 900) are represented by the sum of two or three letters representing the first four hundreds. To represent numbers from 1,000 to 999,999, the same letters are reused to serve as thousands, tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands.

Gematria Gematria (; he, גמטריא or gimatria , plural or , ''gimatriot'') is the practice of assigning a numerical value to a name, word or phrase according to an alphanumerical cipher. A single word can yield several values depending on the cipher ...

(Jewish numerology) uses these transformations extensively. In

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

today, the decimal system of

Hindu–Arabic numeral system The Hindu–Arabic numeral system or Indo-Arabic numeral system Audun HolmeGeometry: Our Cultural Heritage 2000 (also called the Hindu numeral system or Arabic numeral system) is a positional decimal numeral system, and is the most common syste ...

(ex. 0, 1, 2, 3, etc.) is used in almost all cases (money, age, date on the

civil calendar The civil calendar is the calendar, or possibly one of several calendars, used within a country for civil, official, or administrative purposes. The civil calendar is almost always used for general purposes by people and private organizations. Th ...

). The Hebrew numerals are used only in special cases, such as when using the

Hebrew calendar The Hebrew calendar ( he, הַלּוּחַ הָעִבְרִי, translit=HaLuah HaIvri), also called the Jewish calendar, is a lunisolar calendar used today for Jewish religious observance, and as an official calendar of the state of Israel. ...

, or numbering a list (similar to a, b, c, d, etc.), much as Roman numerals are used in the West.

Numbers

The Hebrew language has names for common numbers that range from zero to one million. Letters of the

are used to represent numbers in a few traditional contexts, such as in calendars. In other situations, numerals from the

are used. Cardinal and

ordinal numbers In set theory, an ordinal number, or ordinal, is a generalization of ordinal numerals (first, second, th, etc.) aimed to extend enumeration to infinite sets. A finite set can be enumerated by successively labeling each element with the least ...

must agree in gender with the noun they are describing. If there is no such noun (e.g., in telephone numbers), the feminine form is used. For ordinal numbers greater than ten, the cardinal is used. Multiples of ten above the value 20 have no gender (20, 30, 40, ... are genderless), unless the number has the digit 1 in the tens position (110, 210, 310, ...). Hohe Synagoge Prag 1

Ordinal values

Note: For ordinal numbers greater than 10, cardinal numbers are used instead.

Cardinal values

Note: Officially, numbers greater than a million were represented by the

long scale The long and short scales are two of several naming systems for integer powers of ten which use some of the same terms for different magnitudes. For whole numbers smaller than 1,000,000,000 (109), such as one thousand or one million, the ...

. However, since January 21, 2013, the modified

short scale The long and short scales are two of several naming systems for integer powers of ten which use some of the same terms for different magnitudes. For whole numbers smaller than 1,000,000,000 (109), such as one thousand or one million, the t ...

(under which the long scale milliard is substituted for the strict short scale billion), which was already the colloquial standard, became official.

Collective numerals

Speaking and writing

Cardinal and ordinal numbers must agree in gender (masculine or feminine; mixed groups are treated as masculine) with the noun they are describing. If there is no such noun (e.g. a telephone number or a house number in a street address), the feminine form is used. Ordinal numbers must also agree in number and definite status like other adjectives. The cardinal number precedes the noun (e.g., ''shlosha yeladim''), except for the number one which succeeds it (e.g., ''yeled echad''). The number two is special: ''shnayim'' (m.) and ''shtayim'' (f.) become ''shney'' (m.) and ''shtey'' (f.) when followed by the noun they count. For ordinal numbers (numbers indicating position) greater than ten the cardinal is used.

Calculations

The Hebrew numeric system operates on the additive principle in which the numeric values of the letters are added together to form the total. For example, 177 is represented as which (from right to left) corresponds to 100 + 70 + 7 = 177. Mathematically, this type of system requires 27 letters (1-9, 10–90, 100–900). In practice, the last letter, ''tav'' (which has the value 400), is used in combination with itself or other letters from ''qof'' (100) onwards to generate numbers from 500 and above. Alternatively, the 22-letter Hebrew numeral set is sometimes extended to 27 by using 5 ''sofit'' (final) forms of the Hebrew letters.According to Gandz (p. 96), cited above, this use of the sofit letters was not widely accepted and soon abandoned.

Key exceptions

By convention, the numbers 15 and 16 are represented as (9 + 6) and (9 + 7), respectively, in order to refrain from using the two-letter combinations (10 + 5) and (10 + 6), which are alternate written forms for the

Name of God There are various names of God, many of which enumerate the various qualities of a Supreme Being. The English word ''god'' (and its equivalent in other languages) is used by multiple religions as a noun to refer to different deities, or speci ...

in everyday writing. In the calendar, this manifests every

full moon The full moon is the lunar phase when the Moon appears fully illuminated from Earth's perspective. This occurs when Earth is located between the Sun and the Moon (when the ecliptic longitudes of the Sun and Moon differ by 180°). This means ...

since all Hebrew months start on a new moon (see for example: Tu BiShvat). Combinations which would spell out words with negative connotations are sometimes avoided by switching the order of the letters. For instance, 744 which should be written as (meaning "you/it will be destroyed") might instead be written as or (meaning "end to demon").

Use of final letters

The Hebrew numeral system has sometimes been extended to include the five final letter forms— for 500, for 600, for 700, for 800, for 900—which are then used to indicate the numbers from 500 to 900. The ordinary additive forms for 500 to 900 are , , , and .

Gershayim

Baiersdorf Juedischer Friedhof 025 (cropped)

Gershayim (U+05F4 in

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, wh ...

, and resembling a double quote mark) (sometimes erroneously referred to as ''merkha'ot'', which is Hebrew for double quote) are inserted before (to the right of) the last (leftmost) letter to indicate that the sequence of letters represents something other than a word. This is used in the case where a number is represented by two or more Hebrew numerals (''e.g.,'' 28 → ). Similarly, a single

geresh Geresh ( in Hebrew: ‎ or ‎ , or medieval ) is a sign in Hebrew writing. It has two meanings. #An apostrophe-like sign (also known colloquially as a ''chupchik'') placed after a letter: #* as a diacritic that modifies the pronunciation ...

(U+05F3 in Unicode, and resembling a single quote mark) is appended after (to the left of) a single letter to indicate that the letter represents a number rather than a (one-letter) word. This is used in the case where a number is represented by a single Hebrew numeral (''e.g.'' 100 → ). Note that

and gershayim merely indicate "''not a (normal) word.''" Context usually determines whether they indicate a number or something else (such as an abbreviation). An alternative method found in old manuscripts and still found on modern-day tombstones is to put a dot above each letter of the number.

Decimals

In print, Arabic numerals are employed in Modern Hebrew for most purposes. Hebrew numerals are used nowadays primarily for writing the days and years of the

; for references to traditional Jewish texts (particularly for Biblical chapter and verse and for Talmudic folios); for bulleted or numbered lists (similar to ''A'', ''B'', ''C'', ''etc.'', in English); and in numerology (

gematria Gematria (; he, גמטריא or gimatria , plural or , ''gimatriot'') is the practice of assigning a numerical value to a name, word or phrase according to an alphanumerical cipher. A single word can yield several values depending on the cipher ...

Thousands and date formats

Thousands are counted separately, and the thousands count precedes the rest of the number (to the ''right'', since Hebrew is read from right to left). There are no special marks to signify that the "count" is starting over with thousands, which can theoretically lead to ambiguity, although a single quote mark is sometimes used after the letter. When specifying years of the Hebrew calendar in the present millennium, writers usually omit the thousands (which is presently 5 []), but if they do not this is accepted to mean 5,000, with no ambiguity. The current Israeli coinage includes the thousands.

Date examples

"Monday, 15 Adar 5764" (where 5764 = 5(×1000) + 400 + 300 + 60 + 4, and 15 = 9 + 6): : In full (with thousands): "Monday, 15(th) of Adar, 5764" : : Common usage (omitting thousands): "Monday, 15(th) of Adar, (5)764" : "Thursday, 3 Nisan 5767" (where 5767 = 5(×1000) + 400 + 300 + 60 + 7): : In full (with thousands): "Thursday, 3(rd) of Nisan, 5767" : : Common usage (omitting thousands): "Thursday, 3(rd) of Nisan, (5)767" : To see how ''today's'' date in the

is written, see, for example
Hebcal date converter

Recent years

5781 (2020–21) = 5780 (2019–20) = 5779 (2018–19) = ... 5772 (2011–12) = 5771 (2010–11) = 5770 (2009–10) = 5769 (2008–09) = ... 5761 (2000–01) = 5760 (1999–2000) =

Similar systems

The

Abjad numerals The Abjad numerals, also called Hisab al-Jummal ( ar, حِسَاب ٱلْجُمَّل, ), are a decimal alphabetic numeral system/ alphanumeric code, in which the 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet are assigned numerical values. They have been ...

are equivalent to the Hebrew numerals up to 400. The

differ from the Hebrew ones from 90 upwards because in the

Greek alphabet The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as w ...

there is no equivalent for ''tsade'' ().

References

External links

* , ,
Gematria Chart on inner.org

Hebrew Number Chart 1 to 1 Million with English Transliteration

Learn to say any number in English with Transliteration
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hebrew Numerals

Numerals A numeral is a figure, symbol, or group of figures or symbols denoting a number. It may refer to: * Numeral system used in mathematics * Numeral (linguistics), a part of speech denoting numbers (e.g. ''one'' and ''first'' in English) * Numerical d ...

Numerals